Fidan to attend Iran’s new president’s inauguration ceremony

ANKARA

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will visit Tehran on Tuesday to participate in the inauguration ceremony of Iran's President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian.

"Our Minister will visit Tehran on July 30, 2024, to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran's President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

In the second round of the presidential elections held in Iran on July 5, reformist Tabriz MP and former Health Minister Pezeshkian won 53.7% of the vote, becoming the country's 9th president.

A swearing-in ceremony will be held on Tuesday for Pezeshkian, with representatives including heads of state and ministers from various countries in attendance.

Following this, Pezeshkian will present his cabinet to the Parliament for a vote of confidence.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave Sunday his official endorsement of Pezeshkian as the Islamic republic's ninth president.

Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and parliament member for the northwestern city of Tabriz since 2008, was Khatami's health minister.

On July 5 the reformist candidate won a runoff race against the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili to replace president Ebrahim Raisi who died in a helicopter crash in May.

Pezeshkian secured more than 16 million votes, or about 54 percent of the roughly 30 million ballots cast.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has congratulated Pezeshkian’s election victory and underlined that the bilateral ties will further improve under the new Iranian leadership. Pezeshkian is known as a reformist politician who has promised to improve Iran’s ties with the neighboring countries and the West.

  Fidan to visit Egypt

In the meantime, Fidan will also visit Egypt in the early days of August for talks with his counterpart, Badr Abdelatty, who has recently been appointed as the new Iranian foreign minister.

The talks will prepare for the upcoming visit by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the occasion of the High-Level Strategic Council meeting in the coming months. Türkiye and Egypt have normalized the ties through mutual visits since 2022.

Fidan and Abdelatty will discuss the latest situation in Gaza under the Israeli offensive, which has claimed the lives of around 40,000 civilians since October 2023. The humanitarian situation and efforts for an immediate ceasefire will also be on their agenda.